Page 67 of Exacting Vengeance

“Are you willing to speak to us without an attorney present?” Jack repeated, surprisingly gently.

She nodded. “Yes.”

Kyle crossed his arms, his jaw clenching repeatedly as he watched silently.

Deke pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket, then unfolded it and handed it to her, along with a pen. “This is a waiver-of-rights form. If you sign it now, you can change your mind and rescind the waiver at any point during questioning.”

“Wait!” Kyle yanked the form from her hand. “She needs an attorney.”

“I don’t need an attorney.” She snatched back the form.

“Victoria, don’t do this.” The skin between Kyle’s eyes etched into a deep furrow. “Talk to an attorney first. Please.”

“Now you care what happens to me?” She shook her head. “You can’t have it both ways. And I don’t need an attorney. I did what I had to in order to survive. You may not understand that, but I’ll take my chances with a judge and a jury.”

Ignoring the intensifying look of frustration on Kyle’s face, she rounded the sofa, then sat down and signed the waiver form. One by one, she locked eyes with the four men. “Now, can we get this over with?” She hadn’t had a backbone then, but she wasn’t about to lose the one she’d grown since leaving Yuri.

Kyle’s boss and Jack sat beside her. Deke and Kyle took the two wingback chairs on the other side of the coffee table. It was almost as if they’d choreographed the whole thing. Either that, or Kyle couldn’t stomach being near her. At that thought, her heart twisted so viciously she could feel the blood dripping out. As much as it hurt, erecting an emotional wall between them was the only way she’d get through this. If that were even possible.

Deke pulled out a digital recorder and turned it on. He recited the date, time, the names of everyone present, and the person being interviewed—her. Although with four FBI agents, there was no doubting this was far more than an interview.

It was an interrogation.

“First and foremost,” Mike Morrison said, “where did Yuri have you hide the money?”

“In two bank safe deposit boxes,” she answered honestly, holding onto a few other facts. For the moment, at least. Eventually, she’d have to tell them everything, but there were justifiable reasons for doing that later. “Yuri didn’t want the money hidden in the house.”

“Because he was worried it would either be robbed by rival groups,” Kyle said, “or searched by the FBI. It’s the Bratva way.”

Morrison handed her a small pad and a pen. “Write down the name and address of the bank.”

She wrote down the address for a bank in Chicago—the one where Yuri’s money used to be.

“We subpoenaed every bank in Chicago for Yuri’s accounts,” Kyle said in an emotionless tone. “What name was the account in?”

“Mine,” she answered. “He said not to use his name.”

Kyle’s chest expanded on a deep breath. “Then it’s my fault, Mike. I vouched for her. I told you she was innocent.” His hard gaze swung back to her. “Of everything.”

He was shouldering the blame for this, and it was her fault. He really had to stop blaming himself for the actions of others.

“Actually,” Mike said, “I ran her name anyway, so it’s not your fault we missed this account.”

Kyle’s eyes narrowed. “So, what name is it under?”

“Yuri told me to set them up under my maiden name. After we were married, I was going to get a new driver’s license in my married name, but Yuri told me not to.” He’d also warned her that if she touched a dime of his money, he’d snap her neck like a pretzel.

“That’s why we never found it.” Kyle’s jaw clenched more. “Clever.”

“Did Yuri ever go with you to take out any of the money?” Jack asked.

“No.” She shook her head.

“How much money was in the boxes?” Morrison asked.

She noted that he’d said was, as if he assumed she’d spent it. In a way she had but not in the way he was figuring on. “Just over five million dollars.” She squeezed her eyes shut, steeling herself for the eventual questions to come and dreading having to answer them.

“Yuri and Nikolai Lebedev are suspected in the kidnappings of at least seven Russian citizens the FBI is aware of,” Morrison said. “In each case, their families paid the ransom money in unmarked cash, but the victims never returned home, and their bodies were never discovered. The ransom money totaled over ten million dollars. Half that amount was seized from Nikolai Lebedev’s accounts. The remainder we assumed was in Yuri’s possession.”